Amanda, 1) Ordinarily there would be the usual twelve steps of information gathering to do states-side before starting research in Switzerland. But you've already gotten the three elements of data ( 1.name, 2.hometown where citizenship is held, and 3.a date of either birth or confirmation or marriage or death ) which are essential to initiating research in Switzerland. (You do have the full name of your ancestor, don't you?) 2) So next would be getting your feet on the ground before actually digging in and doing the research. To do this, go to (and bookmark): ===== Swiss Genealogy on the Internet: Introduction http://www.eye.ch/swissgen/ ===== Read the topic "Swiss Citizenship" especially well. Then find the village of Mühlau (Muehlau) listed under its church parish of Muri at: ===== Location of Genealogical records by Canton http://www.swissgenealogie.ch/kibu/ ===== When you arrive at the above webpage, scroll down to "Aargau" in the right hand column. Click on it. Scroll slowly and read. Look for the link to "all parishes" in paragraph 2. Click on this link to go to the list of parishes in Canton Aargau. Find the parish "Muri" and note that it has the church books for Mühlau. Question is, are they filmed by LDS? To find out, go to: ===== LDS LOCALITIES FILMED http://www.swissgenealogie.ch/ldsloc-m.htm ===== -OR - ===== LDS LOCALITIES FILMED http://www.eye.ch/swissgen/ldsloc-m.htm#ENGLISH ===== Note here that the only records listed as having been filmed are those of the catholic church for the years 1500-1631 (that is from memory; I haven't been able to access the site this morning; getting timed out which may mean someone is working on the site). Ordinarily, LDS will have filmed the church records up thru 1875. Since that may not hold true here, next best would be to ask the Staatsarchiv (state archive) or the Zivilstandsamt (municipal registrar) how to get copies of the church records for Muri (which should include Mühlau). Write to: ===== Staatsarchiv Aargau Entfelderstrasse 22 Buchenhof Postfach 5001 Aarau Switzerland --------------- e-mail: <[email protected]> ===== - & - ===== Zivilstandsamt und Gemeindeverwaltung 5630 Muri AG Switzerland ===== 3) Write your letter (or e-mail) in English but send it in German. To do this, keep it to less than 30 typed lines and submit it to the FREE German Translating Group at: ===== German GenealogyTranslation Team http://www.genealogy.net/gene/misc/translation.html ===== 4) Give it your best shot. Let me know if you get stopped anywhere. When you locate filmed church records of Mühlau, then just a matter of asking your local FHC to order them in for you. Once they're in, you can look them over and see if you want to return them after the two-week loan period or if you want to put them on permanent loan which costs only a few bucks more. (Permanent loan is usually the way to go.) Good luck with this interesting search, Pete Mattli Clermont, FL SSD Admin [email protected] [3-ggg's] =========================== Subj: [SWITZ] Family questions and Muhlau Date: 1/4/2003 4:10:56 AM Eastern Standard Time From: <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> Sent from the Internet (Details) ------=_Part_52_7766382.1041671419242 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My family came from the town of Muhlau. The last name is Bucher. Any inform ation on the name or town or where to start would be greatly welcome! Thanks Amanda ------=_Part_52_7766382.1041671419242--